Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival

Queens Pride is a parade and multicultural festival held on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights. Organizers describe it as the second oldest and second largest Pride parade in New York City, and it takes place each year on the first Sunday in June.

The Queens Pride Parade was founded to raise LGBTQ visibility in Queens and to honor Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera, whose murder helped spur its creation. It also grew out of the 1992 backlash against gay and lesbian content in the Children of the Rainbow curriculum. Daniel Dromm, then a public school teacher in the district at the center of the controversy, came out publicly and set out to hold a family-friendly parade in a neighborhood where many closeted gay people lived.

The first planning meeting took place on November 22, 1992, in Dromm's Flushing apartment, and the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee formed soon after, co-chaired by Dromm and Cuban-born activist Maritza Martinez. The committee canvassed neighborhood gay bars for support, though some owners worried about the cost of being visible.

The first parade, on June 6, 1993, drew an estimated 10,000 people along a route from 89th to 75th Streets on 37th Avenue, marked with a painted lavender line. Drag and transgender performers who had helped raise money in local bars were featured in the stage show, and Martinez spoke in English and Spanish. The parade later inspired Pride marches in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and it is now produced by the NY LGBT Network.

Pride events celebrate LGBTQ+ people and mark the Stonewall uprising of June 1969. Most combine a parade or march with a festival of performers, community groups, vendors and food.

Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival has included parade and festival.

Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival was first held in 1993.

The next edition is June 6, 2027. It usually falls first Sunday in June.